Sunshine Coast war memorial: Caloundra vets await outcome of council road negotiations

Caloundra veterans are anxiously awaiting the outcome of negotiations with council over part of a war memorial garden earmarked for road upgrades.

A group of veterans is anxiously awaiting the outcome of negotiations as Sunshine Coast Council prepares to push ahead with land acquisitions set to eat into an RSL memorial garden.

Councillors will vote on officer recommendations to push on with the land acquisitions at the August 19 ordinary meeting to enable a new transport corridor to be established.

Officers have recommended councillors vote to delegate authority to the chief executive to begin the acquisition process for several properties in Oval Avenue, Gosling Street and Third Avenue.

Part of the land earmarked by the council covered the Caloundra RSL’s Bob McInnes Memorial Garden.

Veterans had tried unsuccessfully to-date to have the route altered and were now working through negotiations with the council.

Caloundra RSL sub-branch president and retired RAAF Sergeant Heather Christie said negotiations so far had reduced the amount of garden to be resumed from about 7.5m to 2.5-3m.

But Ms Christie said it would still be a significant impact on the sacred site.

She said a large tree behind the mounted helicopter would go as part of the resumption while part of the garden where the ashes of several veterans’ remains had been scattered would be snapped up for the new road.

Catherine Stamp, George Harris and Heather Christie in front of the iconic memorial. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Ms Christie said there was talk of a sound barrier going along the boundary but she feared the effects of traffic noise during solemn ceremonies honouring the sacrifices so many made.

“It is a huge impact,” Ms Christie said.

She said it was “very disappointing” that all three levels of government had not assisted with searching for an alternative.

Ms Christie said she’d heard rumours the new road corridor would be the alignment a future light rail or mass transit system would also run along and she feared further loss of the garden if that were the case.

A council spokeswoman said the mass transit project had identified the potential stage 2 corridor between Birtinya and Caloundra but planning for that stage hadn’t started yet.

“Stage 2 is proposed to connect the Sunshine Coast University Hospital with Caloundra and the proposed route will be further investigated if the business case process is undertaken for this second stage,” the spokeswoman said.

The new road upgrade was set to reduce congestion at the Caloundra Road-Nicklin Way roundabout and the eastern end of Caloundra Road.

A two-way cycle track, pedestrian pathways and landscaping were planned as part of the new road.

Nineteen property owners were identified as directly impacted by the project and to-date eight of those had been purchased by the council.

The spokeswoman said owners of the remaining properties had been told the resumption process would begin, but would not disclose how much the council had spent to-date on acquisitions or how much more I expected to outlay.

Construction of the new road project was set to start in the 2022-23 financial year with all required land to be acquired by June, 2022.

The proposed transport upgrade route for Caloundra.

The officer’s recommendations to councillors included the requirement for a report on any objection to a resumption to be presented to the council which would then decide whether to apply for ministerial approval to take the land, to amend the notice to resume or not to go ahead with the process.

Council officers would continue to attempt to acquire land by negotiation but the compulsory process had been recommended to run in parallel to avoid any delays to the project with the acquisition process expected to take at least 6-12 months.

Ms Christie said she hoped to learn more in the next week about the outcome of the RSL’s negotiations with the council.